The bridesmaid specialist is now the bride

Hello people. Remember I posted an article a lifetime ago about how my sister was always asked to be a bridesmaid and I never was…..almost never was. read that HERE . I am excited to announce that the bridesmaid specialist is now the bride.. hurray. This weekend, a wise wise young guy took another of the Idrisu girl as a wife. (We Idrisu girls are very special with a heart of gold…. though I like to think that mine is more of titanium mixed with a little platinum with just a hint of………..what was I again?)

Ahaaa the wedding….Thanks to our relocation which was very timely, I was able to attend the ceremony. Considering how vain I am, I was determined to look fabulous to all the aunties and uncles who had not seen me in years. I have worked relatively hard all year to lose the baby weight and I was a few kg shy of my ultimate goal but alas! I try if I do say so myself. Continue reading →

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The title “Mrs”

Nigerians are obsessed with marriage. It is an unescapable and undeniable fact. As soon as a girl finishes the university(some even before), the questioning begins “Do you have a serious boyfriend?” Why will u bring home a man for us?” As she gets older, relatives start to broach the subject as well. As she nears her 30s, it is a ‘free for all’ From aunties to distant cousins to the mallam selling chewing gum down the road. They all begin to ask “you no go marry. Your mates don born finish”

In April and August, I have published two contrasting experiences. One was aptly titled “Single shaming”, the story of Felicia(not real name) whose siblings and friends have all gotten married. (You can read it again HERE) She felt ostracized by her best friends who didn’t invite her for their reunion and alienated by her married younger sisters. I got in contact with the now 33-year-old Felicia a few weeks ago. As much as I would have to be delivering a happily ever after story right now for Felicia, her fairy tale is still in the works. She is currently dating though. She is with a 42 year divorcee with 2 kids. It raised some red flags with me. Now I have nothing against divorcees. I have handled a lot of divorce cases in my time and I do realize being divorced doesn’t necessarily mean the party has a bad character. Sometimes people are not meant to be. HOWEVER, sometimes the divorce could be due to the character of the divorcee. I was concerned as to whether she had let the pressure get to her and is settling or genuinely ready to be with the man and become an instant mother. She assured me she was. Looking forward to the wedding bells in the future.

My next writer had no qualms about admitting she was settling. In August, Susan wrote in stating that she was about to have this huge extravagant wedding with an amazing man who loved her. The catch was she didn’t love him. Not even a little bit.(or so she says. She was waiting to feel butterflies) Her main consideration was her age. (You can also read that HERE ). Some readers advised her not to go through it. Others told her the love would grow. She went through it and even posted all the pictures on Facebook. It was truly an extravagant wedding. Yesterday, I got into a chat with her and asked if the butterflies has arrived. She ‘lol’ed and said no, but she was comfortable. Comfortable…… Not happy…. Comfortable.

Now I am not trying to poke holes in these ladies’ lives, neither am I trying to criticize their choices. I understand all too well the intense pressure of being an unmarried girl in her thirties in a country like Nigeria. A lot of hype is attached to being a ‘Mrs’ over the general happiness of the girl in question. Marriage is one of the hardest thing in the world to handle, and it takes the constant effort to make it work. So it’s not about being a ‘Mrs’ but staying a ‘Mrs’ while keeping your dignity and sanity.

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I need to tell my Best friend that I slept with her fiance. She deserves to Know.

Hello everyone, happy new month. It is a beautiful day. I had a zombie nightmare last night. Luckily for me, I had a gun that actually worked. I fired the gun and blew up the zombie’s head (hurray). However, in typical nightmarish style, the Zombie didn’t die and kept coming. I remember thinking “*&^% this. That’s cheating”. Then I woke up and I smiled. Usually you wake up from Nightmares when you are about to die. I woke up because my rational head interfered with dream world. So I win.

Aha, that’s enough rambling for today. I got a mail from a Ghanaian. Usually, most of my mails come from Nigeria, but now I got one from Ghana. Pretty cool right? Kawula(hello). Thanks for reading. Thanks for sharing your story. I will be brutally honest with you, but I am glad you wrote to me (In other news, we kicked your butt during the Nations Cup, ha ha ha). Ok. Serious. Here is Louisa’s story.

Hello Hera,

Hello. I hope you can help me with my dilemma. I know a lot of people are likely to judge me, but as they judge, I hope that they can give me real solid advice as well because I really can’t tell anyone else.

I have a good friend. For the purpose of this write-up, I changed our names and our schools. I am sure you understand. Nana and I have been very good friends for 7 years. Nana is very pretty and gets all the attention. I am quite dark and ordinary looking. I have spent a good part of my life in Nana’s shadow, but that has never really bothered me. Nana is a nice girl. Yeah, she did a lot of things that hurt my feelings and have taken away the attentions of guys that I admired, but I know she never did any of that intentionally. She is not that type. I guess it is just one of the things that comes with having a very hot friend.

Continue reading →

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We need Marriage Counselors In Nigeria Please. No More P and E…………..

I am having one of those months. A lot of ideas but the inability to type it down. However for the past three days, I have been conversing with a reader who has been having some serious marital issues. Like I have told her and everyone, I am NOT qualified in the slightest to give professional advice on ANYTHING. (Newly Married myself and still trying to balance my innate feminist nature of “I will never be controlled’ to becoming a submissive African wife. It is a daily struggle). I guess my reader just wanted someone to talk to, that was a stranger.

This is one of the problems in Nigeria (amongst many). Couples don’t have anywhere to turn when they are facing crisis. True, some turn to their parents or siblings, but in more cases than not, it makes the situation worse. A Scenario- A man goes to complain to his mother about the character of his wife. Even if the mother is one of the sensible ones and does not take sides, there is always going to be that resentment from the wife’s end that so you went to report me to your mother and vice versa, so It is a No-Win situation. I believe that the saying “The wife is the one that makes or breaks a home” is a tremendous and unfair burden placed on married women. It irks me that a failure of a marriage is on the woman because they are magically expected to do whatever it takes to make a marriage work, even if it involves loosing herself in the process. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? What is the man’s role in making sure that a marriage does not fail? I remembered a married friend once said “A husband’s role is to provide. A wife’s role is everything else”.

Continue reading →

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Never a Bridesmaid………..well almost never…..

I love weddings……I have always wanted to be involved in weddings in one way or the other, but for some reason, I have been extremely unlucky. (sad face). My sister is, as I type this, on her 9th bridesmaid duty. Right from when we were kids, Everyone loved Zee. She was cute and spunky. She was always asked to be the flower girl or little bride for neighbours and acquaintances( we are Muslims, so we never used little brides or flower girls in our weddings). I was never asked. Yeah. I know that I was a chubby unattractive kid, but I always thought I made up for that in personality………………apparently not. Dammmit.

>My stunning sister in some of her bridesmaid dresses

Growing up, I have always wanted to be a bridesmaid. Always. It is something I desperately yearned for. Sure the dresses were usually hideous, but that never deterred me. For me, being a bridesmaid meant that you are special to the bride. It meant you are important. However, it seemed no one wanted a plus size bridesmaid. I had friends pick acquaintances instead of me for the sole reason that they would look better in the dresses (ouch!) and I was always stuck in the aso-ebi roles. I usually left subtle hints to my friends that I wanted to be on their train but when that didn’t work,(Subtlety was never my strong suit anyways) I screamed at them “PUT ME ON YOUR FREAKING TRAINS”. That didn’t work either. Go figure. So I stopped asking.

So I had resigned to my fate that I would never be a bridesmaid in my lifetime. Then in 2010, an old school friend asked me to be part of her bridal party. I was super excited but kept a straight face. The conversation went thus.

“Are you asking me because you want me to be on your train or because you know I would be able to pay for the dress’
‘Bo…..
“I AM IN!!!!’
Now that I had my first bridesmaid opportunity, I wanted it to be perfect. Went off a diet(stopped after 2 weeks), went on a skin regime(had severe breakouts from an allergic reaction to Olay goat milk soap). At that time, I just gave up and went with the flow. During the fitting, I discovered that it was going to be strapless. (I don’t do strapless and In my excitement, I didn’t ask. Genius me). However, there was going to be a jacket….a ridiculously small jacket, but a jacket all the same) So it was not so bad. It was also one of the nicest bridesmaid dresses I had seen.

My first and most likely only bridesmaid outfit

I got a first hand experience on how tedious it is being a bridesmaid. It is more than just hanging around and looking pretty. The bride’s mum had me running errands, because I was the most familiar face to her. I was on my feet in my “raise me ups’ all day and they were really starting to hurt (‘Raise me up’ is what my sister calls my high heel shoes because I only wear two inches or less. I have a closet full of shoes (because they are pretty), but I only wear the 2 inches or less shoes (because they are practical and I have wobbly feet). So as far as she is concerned, 2 inches or less are not Heels) It made me wonder why anyone would want to be a bridesmaid. It’s not as glamorous as I thought it would be, but I am so glad I got to do it once before I got too old to do it.

So, have you ever been a bridesmaid? What was your experience? Did you do it because you loved the idea like I did, or out of obligation to your friends? Have you never been a bridesmaid? Drop a line.

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